Saturday, May 19, 2012

Solo producing stunning web-based stories & online docs

As with Videojournalism, the turn of 2000 would produce a new crop of digital creatives who were equally at home encoding as they were filming.

Flash couldn't support video, so you had to create the illusion of movement with bitmap images, and when it did you'd be hard pressed to have a control panel.

It's one reason why if you look through some of viewmagazine.tv my sites early work there's no player.

If video wasn't the in-thing before 2000 what was? Simply, text and images and the daddy of the story form was one Matt Owens, who launched his voluminous site called: Volume One.

Matt, from Austin Texas became the icon for many design/video companies, also popularising the Death March - working 16 hours a day.

What is it with Austin Texas, with the likes of Owen, Rodriguez, Slacker generation and SXSW?

Web-based storytelling is now a lucrative field and an integral part of the final project modules I supervise at the University of Westminster, from design, broadcast and agency experience over the last 14 years.

Interestingly, and perhaps somewhat disappointedly its workflow has inherited Television's division of labour, with the producer, researcher, writer and so on. I do away with that.

Yet also it's understandable, given web story form has become the primary job of the designer and encoder as one, and not videoists. That shouldn't have happened.

The television industry's insouciant attitude to all things digital online was the cause. When they sat down to regroup, it was to dust off a 30 year old idea of going HD.

The web would never compete with us now was the thinking, though that's a fallacy for anyone who knows Gilders law.

Web-basing grand stories
But to become a true tour de force, whilst web docs do well for online, the psychology of solo story telling in scale, quite literally, can be lacking.

That said, a number of web-based story forms have become indelible, such as the Filmmakers in Residence project, and Soul of Athens - both group projects.

Below are some outstanding pieces from previous Masters students.

First how do you approach web based story?

Online multimedia story form follows a similar logic to database storyform, redolent of computer programming. Though it's based on textual ( print) and video ( TV) codes, it's killer app is online's hyperlinking. So choice and arcs (emotional and narrative) can be inbuilt.

1. Determine what the story is. The more compelling the content, the more you'll be able to use emotional or conflicts arcs to create your jump off spot. Think page-turner of a good book
2. Map the story out, building in contingencies for uncertainties and attempt a linear narrative.
Invariably sub stories will find their way into the story. When that happens go back to point 1.
3. It's all with the front page - the window into your site. Get that right and it's a good start. There's singularly one place online which groups some of the best front pages, designed to sell you that one story. Apple Trailer site
4. There's a very common theme on the site. See if you can spot it. Philosopher Deleuze refers to it as the affective image.
5. Now comes the delineation of the story, which is where personal supervision comes in to determine how and what apps to use to create the maximum impact. In part it involves project management and a willingness from the student to push past their comfort zone.

She worked hard to get this to work, and when she thought it was all over feedback had her redouble her efforts.

The result is a cinematic grouping of photo-stories explaining London's dire air.

6. Stephy's Echoes of the Mountain examines the plight of a small village in China, which the author claims is indicative of many others.

Breadwinners leave the village to earn a living, leaving their children with elderly citizens.

This is a heart warming and wrenching story. The site's margins are out, since last reviewing it.

David Dunkley Gyimah creates and lectures in online video story forms. He publishes the award winning site viewmagazine.tv which includes projects such as Collisionsat the Southbank which covered a week of creative work between artists. And previewed multimedia forms at the Olympic 2012 pitch gathering. He's currently completing an web story around his four-year videojournalism programme in Cairo.

Channel 4's Jon Snow comments on David work as "original".

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David is a trend-setter who is always one step ahead of the game in terms of journalism, video and digital media. He is inspiring and an innovator and I am constantly in awe at what he achieves and ideas he comes up with. He’s also an excellent teacher and mentor. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with next!

David has touched a creative level that deserves an Oscar. More importantly he is paving the way for future journalists and will radically change the way we see news. A truly inspirational and dynamic character.

I presented viewmagazine.tv at a recent company meeting at NBC Universal for executives in digital media. This high-level media crowd was in stunned and amazed at the creativity and intellectual complexity of this dynamic website. A winner!

David has been changing the game since long before I met him. His work is always on the bleeding edge, his storytelling and design sense is always fantastic. This guy could make a story about paying your taxes look great and catch your interest!

David and I have never met, but he has been a cyber mentor to me for the past 18 months and has been a wealth of “thinking outside the box” information on the solo video journalist paradigm that has helped me form what I do and why.

With urgency, style, and provocation, David delivers credible and well-presented news stories. His work is as serious as it is entertaining. He pulls us into his “experiments” and leaves us to judge the approach for ourselves. It’s hard not to be influenced by his energy and enthusiasm.

A life-changing tutor and mentor - who ABSOLUTELY changed the world of video for my group of new VJs. His work is as inspiring as his teaching methods, and constantly challenging the best way to achieve results. His website and blog and compelling, must-follow sites for anyone working with video or multimedia on the web.

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